The Hostage
by Spectral Scribe
Summary: When Dean Winchester shows up asking if you know the whereabouts of his brother, who’s been kidnapped by hunters, the first thing you might want to do is take his weapons and run. Warning: DARK!
1. Part 1

_Disclaimer:_ I do not own or lay claim to anything related to Supernatural. But my birthday's in a couple weeks… who knows?

_A/N:_ Somewhere along the way, this got dark. Like, DARK. Possibly one of the darkest things I've written, and you have my English teacher to thank for that because somewhere along the way thematic ideas from Heart of Darkness, as well as some lines from T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men," hijacked the story. I give up. Here it is, and be warned, because, you know, DARK!

* * *

**THE HOSTAGE**

By Spectral Scribe

The bar was clean, unlike most bars Dean frequented, which stank with smoke, vomit, and booze, and had the slightly crumbling façade of a rundown outhouse that hadn't been scrubbed clean since sometime in the 1800's. It was dark, too, being about two o'clock in the morning and the sky a cold shade of navy; a single dim light shone over the bar where a lone barmaid was busy shelving spotless glasses and nearly-full bottles of Jack Daniels.

Dean slunk silently through the shadows, the collar of his beaten leather jacket pulled up to the back of his spiky brown hair, his ripped jeans wearing yesterday's bloodstains like boy scout patches. Stepping into the light, he grinned and murmured softly, "Hey, Jo."

Nearly dropping a glass in her hand, the blonde glanced up hastily from her work, her eyes wide and shocked. When she regained her composure, she set the glass down on the surface and rubbed her eyes. "Dean?"

"How's it going?" he asked casually, stepping closer to Jo with his hands deep in his pockets.

"Um," Jo replied, "fine, I guess. What are you doing here?"

A trickle of silver moonlight slanted in through the window, cascading over the floor and giving Dean's skin a metallic, ethereal glow. "I, uh…" he glanced around, bringing one hand up to the back of his head to scratch nervously. "Have you seen Sam?"

Pursing her lips and drawing her eyebrows together, Jo shook her head. "No. Why? What happened?"

Dean heaved a sigh, pulling up a chair and seating himself at the bar. "He's gone. I can't find him." Blank eyes stared hard into the distance, and Jo pulled out a beer and slid it over to him across the smooth surface of the bar. He caught it deftly, not even looking up to watch it coming towards him, and took a long swig. "I was hoping you'd seen him. I don't know where else to look."

Jo pulled out a beer for herself. "I'm sorry, Dean," she replied at last. "I haven't heard from him. Do you think he's okay?"

Dark eyes turned down, bore a fiery hole in the bottle of beer. "I don't know," he whispered at last. "I think maybe…" he wet his lips, a soft tongue poking out from behind his glistening teeth as a sort of precursor to the coming revelation. "I think he might have been kidnapped." Dean took another swallow of beer.

"What? Kidnapped?" Jo cried out, running a hand through her tangled locks of wavy blonde hair. "That's insane. Who'd want to kidnap Sam?"

Dean's broad shoulders hunched, shrugged, and fell again as he ran his thumb in slow, lazy circles over the rim of his bottle. "We both know others have found out about him. Him and the other psychic kids." The moonlight shivered as clouds passed over the sky, twinkling on Dean's skin and revealing a mottled painting of purple and yellow on his neck, running down into the collar of his shirt and almost to his chin. "Gordon's already tried hunting him. Who knows who else has gotten the same bright idea?"

"Hunters," Jo clarified. "You think hunters kidnapped Sam."

Dean grinned suddenly, a twisted contortion of his face that was full of irony and loathing and spite, no humor to be found in the expression. "Yeah. Ain't that a kicker?" He licked his lips again, took one last swallow of beer, and slammed it back on the countertop. "So if you hear anything…"

Jo nodded, the color having drained from her face. "All right. Yeah. Maybe I'll try asking around, see if I can dig anything up."

Leaning back, Dean's silhouette fell out of the circle of light, and all that could be seen was a broad-shouldered shadow and the glint of saliva on teeth as he grinned, or sneered, or simply bared his teeth in rage—it was difficult to tell which. "You do that. But be careful, all right? These hunters… they're twisted. They turn against Sam like that, there's no telling what kind of deluded rationalization they've come up with for themselves. Hell, they might turn on me next. Who knows? Just don't buy into it, whatever they tell you, if you do get in contact with anybody. They may lie, make shit up that makes sense to them because they think they're doing the world a favor."

"Don't worry." Jo's back straightened as she stood resolutely behind the bar. "Despite our past differences, you and Sam… you're my friends. I wouldn't turn my back on either of you. And if it's hunters," she continued, her eyes lighting up. "Well, if it's hunters, then you might want to check the Roadhouse."

There was that glint of teeth again in the darkness, and then Dean was leaning forward, elbows on the bar and fully under the dim yellow light. "Thanks, Jo. You're a doll."

Jo nodded. "Anytime. You can come to me anytime, Dean."

Standing up, he towered over her, a long shadow stretching out from his feet to the corner where the floor met the wall. "Call me if you hear anything." And then he was leaning over the bar, grabbing the back of Jo's head with rough, calloused hands and shoving his mouth against hers, hot and hungry, lips on fire and crackling like mint lifesavers between teeth, fire sparking and flaring and spitting in a dark forest, all tongue and teeth and lips. When he pulled away, his hard grip brought a few strands of blonde hair with him.

Jo slowly opened her eyes, looking especially dazed in the dim lighting of the bar. Dean stared at her from shadowed eyes. He held up his cell phone and tapped it with his fingers as a reminder before turning and sweeping out of the room, away from the lines of moonlight that settled peacefully over the floor.

She stood there long after he was gone, gazing off into the shadows as her half-drunk beer grew warm on the countertop, touching her lips every so often and frowning before covering her whole face in her hands and sitting like that until dawn.

----------------------------

It's all dark, sweat and bile and fear burning every inch of him, but he can do nothing. Blind, captive, trapped. The terrible need to escape tears at him so deeply he wants to struggle, wants to claw at the darkness swimming around him. Terror. Alone. Helpless. He wants to break free, wants to escape, knows he can't. He wants to scream, but he knows nobody will hear him.

The distant sound of approaching voices invades his senses, but he doesn't want to listen. He doesn't want to hear the horrible things they're saying, doesn't want to hear what's going on, can't take it. It makes him sick to his stomach. And he can do nothing. He is trapped. He is a hostage, and he wishes madly for his brother to arrive, gun in one hand, knife in the other, determination in his eyes, and save him, and it's really not every day that he wishes so desperately to be saved that it physically hurts, that it aches so deep inside him he can focus on nothing but the need. The need to see his brother's face. The need to not hear what they're saying out there, what terrible plan is unfolding.

The voices stop, and he has once again managed to successfully tune them out, worried and sickened and satisfied that he doesn't know quite what's going on, what's being planned. All he knows is that he's alone.

He's alone.

----------------------------

Morning sun beamed down, hot and garish, against the brilliantly lustrous exterior of the 1967 Chevy Impala's black, metallic surface. Crisp onyx chrome gleamed like dark fire as the car careened down the barren stretch of dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust as its engine growled hungrily and ate up the earth. Inside the savage, animalistic beast of burning metal, rock music crunched angrily from the speakers, drowning out all other sound and sensible thought.

Dean Winchester sat in the driver's seat, one hand on the wheel and the other curled around the neck of a brown bottle. The beer was cheap and watered down, not nearly enough to dent Dean's high tolerance—boozin' and bruisin' was his style, albeit most often without the driving attached, but that was irrelevant. Cruising down the highway as the speedometer crept up and up, fields of fresh green grass and cornstalks blurring past the windows, the beer hardly mattered at all.

He took a quick swig of the nearly tasteless beer before lowering his right hand back to his side, sharp eyes devouring the scenery (or lack thereof) stretching for miles upon empty miles around the Impala.

At least, it seemed empty.

But as it were, somewhere along the way he'd picked up a little friend, and sirens sung faintly over the scream of heavy metal as red lights flashed against the liquid silver of the rearview mirror.

"Shit," Dean muttered fiercely. The cop wouldn't easily be shaken off on this barren, endless stretch of road. Easing off the gas, he lowered his foot onto the brake and let the whirr of tires die down as the car slowed to a breezy glide, then a crawl, and finally to a complete stop.

The cop car followed suit behind him, the blinking and flashing and deafening sirens shutting off as well. A smartly dressed officer stepped onto the brown earth, sunglasses and a graying mustache adorning his tanned face, fairly muscled arms swinging along as he strode over to the Impala with a face like carved stone.

When he got to the driver's side, he tapped one long finger against the window, and Dean obligingly rolled it down and let a rush of Ozzy Osbourne flood the fresh, warm outside air. "Mornin', officer," he shouted amiably above the din.

The cop shouted something back that sounded like an order to turn the racket down, so Dean reached up and dumped the volume until it was a mere whisper of "_Now the time is here for Iron Man to spread fear_…"

Harrumphing, the cop leaned over to the open window and peered inside, eyes hidden behind the thick, reflective sunglasses. "Are you aware that you were going twenty miles over the speed limit?"

"Was I?" Dean drawled, glancing down at his wristwatch. "Listen pal, I'd love to stay and chat about my legal offenses, but I really don't have time for this."

"Well, make time," the cop snapped, looking about ready to throw a hissy fit as a vein protruded from his neck. "As it turns out, I don't really have time to deal with punks like you wrapping your car around a tree because you couldn't control a vehicle going way too fast for your own good. Now, I'm going to need some license and registration."

Dean grinned, a dark, feral smile that glinted coldly in his eyes and twisted his lips into a sneer. "And you're doing a great job, but like I said, I don't have time for—"

"Is that a beer?" the cop cut him off, his vein popping even more. "Are you drinking and driving at the same time?" Shaking his head, he wiped one hand over his brow. "That's it. Out of the car."

Lifting his bottle, Dean observed it for a moment as an inquisitive biology student might observe the pinned-back intestines of a pig. Lifting it to his lips, he chugged down the rest of the lukewarm, diluted concoction as the cop grunted in shock and fury. "I've already told you," Dean growled. "I. Don't. Have. Time. For this." With a swift motion, he swung his right arm around to his left side, bringing the bottle through the window and against the side of the stunned cop's face.

Glass shattered in a tinkle of brown shards raining to the ground, crystals mixing with the dirt. The cop shouted in agony and clutched his face as he went down, the _thunk_ of the bottle hitting and cracking his cheekbone reverberating through the quiet air as long streaks of scarlet welled up on his face as though his skin were vomiting marinara sauce. The blood dripped over his fingers and down to the ground, which now became a heterogeneous painting of grimy dirt, twinkling glass, and spots of bright red blood that shined under the blazing glow of the golden sun.

Dean stepped out of the car and crouched down by the cop, inspecting his motionless form. He lay prostrate on the dirt road, left side of his face a mangled mess of torn flesh, one lens of his sunglasses having popped out as they fell askew on his face, slipping down to his nose. Blood dribbled down into his mouth, staining his pearly teeth black. After a moment, the cop let out a groan, grasping at the loose dirt of the road as he tried to turn himself vertical.

"Oh no, you don't," Dean scolded as he grabbed the man around the shoulders to hinder his further ascent. The cop merely groaned again, blinking disoriented eyes as his shattered jaw fell slack. Reaching to his pants, the man shakily grabbed a gun, but Dean merely smirked at him. He snatched the weapon from the man's unsteady grip, scrutinized the shiny metal for a moment, and then tucked it into his own belt and hid it beneath the beaten leather jacket. "Next time when a guy says he doesn't have time to deal with your shit," Dean reprimanded like a schoolteacher, "you'd do well to listen." He patted the cop on the cheek—the left, of course—earning another choked wail of protest. "Good talking to you."

Pushing to his feet, Dean wiped his right hand on his jeans, leaving a small brownish stain there from the blood that had smeared onto his palm from the cop's face. Boots crunching on broken glass, he slid back into the car and pulled the door shut behind him, cranking the music once again to full blast.

"_Running as fast as they can, Iron Man lives again!"_

----------------------------

A part of him wonders how things got so messed up. How he got himself into such a sticky mess, how things got so bad, how they ended up this way. Because this is the way things will end, he knows. He's almost positive, sitting here in the dark, limbs going numb, cut off from the world surely still going on outside—he knows this is the way the world will end.

He can't even bring himself to give a hollow, ironic laugh. Because it's true. If he never gets out of here, if he's trapped here forever—and the thought is ridiculous and unsound and absurd, because of course he will get out, get out or die, whichever—but if he never gets out, then he doesn't know what will happen to his brother. What it will do to him. He worries about that all the time—what his brother is willing to do for him, willing to sacrifice. It scares the shit out of him. But he guesses it comes with the territory of what they do, what their lives have become.

This? This shouldn't come with the territory. This makes him sick to his stomach, and he's losing all track of time and all track of himself. He feels as though he's been here for years, alone in the darkness, captive, a victim of his own foolishness. He feels as though he's become one with the darkness, slipping into the shadows until he's nothing, an ephemeral, ethereal wisp of smoke that curls into the air and disperses until it's nothing but the faint, residual scent of death.

Oh god, please. He doesn't know what he believes anymore, but he prays to whatever might be out there, prays that he might be saved. Just this once. Because his brother needs him, and he needs to get out of here or he'll die of madness before anything else happens.

He hears more voices, just beyond the darkness, keeping just out of his reach, even though he knows, because he's seen. But he's alone.

He knows this is the way he will die, a hostage in the darkness, bone-weary exhaustion tugging at every inch of him he didn't know he could still feel. It's agony. But he knows that this is the way he will die, the way his brother—_can't leave him alone_—will die. He knows.

This is the way the world ends.


	2. Part 2

**PART 2**

The Roadhouse was unsurprisingly empty at this time in the early afternoon, lazy white clouds plodding languidly across the curtain of blue sky as Dean pulled up, slammed the car into park, and stepped out into the calm day. He glanced around once at the lack of cars, nodded to himself, and stepped over to the front door of the bar, swaggering inside and letting the door slam shut behind him.

Dusty, with gray light filtering in through the windows and not a single bulb lit within the place, Harvelle's Roadhouse looked a far cry from his most recent venture into a bar. Stools and chairs sat overturned on tabletops as if someone were making to clean the dirty floor. Behind the counter of the bar was another lone barmaid, either looking for something to drink or assessing what liquor was there and what was needed.

"Got any Jack back there?" Dean grumbled into the dusty silence by way of greeting. Ellen's head snapped up, startled, her wide brown eyes the only thing giving away her shock on her otherwise featureless face. Pushing lank dirty-blonde hair from her face, she stood up straight, giving Dean a hard stare.

"What brings you here?"

Grinning, Dean sauntered over to the bar, pulled down a stool, and sat on it. "Well, see, my brother…" he broke off, eyes on a shaft of sunlight that drifted into the bar, licking his lips. "He's missing. And I thought to myself, now, who would have a hand in that? Couldn't be dear old Ellen… could it?" His eyes returned to hers, and a smug smirk quirked its way up onto his lips.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Ellen snapped a little too harshly, color slowly draining from her face as she returned to her assessment of the bar, eyes a bit pinched and harried.

"Oh, I think you do," Dean replied lazily, leaning over the bar. Then, whispering in a dangerously soft voice with a hard edge like cold steel: "You people won't get away with this."

Ellen remained silent, so Dean kept talking.

"I'm gonna find Sam if it's the last thing I do. Sam's mine; you're all going to pay for this. Now, you wouldn't happen to know his whereabouts, wouldja?"

Ellen swallowed, not meeting Dean's eyes. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she spoke in a low, flat monotone.

Releasing a grunt of fury, Dean grabbed Ellen's shoulder and shoved her back so that she bumped into the wall behind the bar. "Liar!" he shouted, his voice ringing around the empty tables and dust-saturated air. "You know exactly where Sam is, and you're going to tell me, or so help me…" he spat angrily, eyes on fire, as he reached into the belt of his pants and extracted a shiny black pistol.

Eyes widening, Ellen straightened her back against the wall. Dean flipped off the safety and raised the gun, aiming the endless black barrel straight at her head. "You wouldn't," she chocked out, fear bleeding into her eyes as her hands clutched desperately at the smooth wall behind her. "I told you, I don't know exactly what's going on around here, and that's the truth! I'm not in on anything!"

"Ah," Dean cut her off, shaking the gun slightly in the air. "But you never said you didn't know where he is. Me? I'm a nice guy." He grinned, teeth glinting like his hard eyes. "I wouldn't be here waving a gun at you if you didn't know something. Maybe I believe that you're not in on it, but that doesn't really matter to me right now. What matters is that you know where to find Sam." He leaned forward, smiling innocently. "And you're going to tell me."

Ellen's lower lip trembled so slightly, the unobservant eye might not have caught the helpless action. "You're not going to shoot me."

After a moment of Dean sneering, considering the gun, he shook his head and cocked it. Ellen flinched. "No, you're right. I'm not." All the air whooshed out of Ellen's lungs, but the tenseness in her shoulders didn't ease up—nor did the question in her eyes. "Hey, I'm not going to shoot my source of information. What good would that do me? No," he continued, eyes straying to the cop's gun in his hand. "But holding a gun does make things more—real, huh? More dangerous. Tells you I mean business. Now, the sound of a cocking gun—" he un-cocked it only to cock it again, the click reverberating throughout the bar. "—that's the sound of looming death. Such a small sound, but it makes people wet themselves in fear.

"But looking down the dark, tunnel-like barrel of a gun? That's what puts people over the edge. They're looking into their own death, and they know it. I'm not going to shoot you," Dean continued, still holding up the gun in a steady grip. "Well, not as long as you don't piss me off. This is just here as a reminder of who's holding the cards here. And a reminder that if you don't tell me what I need to know, I'll go back to Minnesota and rip Jo, limb from limb, until she bleeds to death right on the barroom floor."

Ellen sucked in a quick gasp. "Jo? What—she doesn't know anything. You can't."

Dean grinned. "Oh, I won't touch a hair on her pretty little head, long as you give me what I want."

There was a long stretch of silence as Ellen panted heavily and Dean stood like a statue carved of stone, somberness etched into every line of his face. "Well?" he muttered at last. "What's it gonna be? In three seconds I'm gonna give Jo a call and tell her I'm coming back to see her…"

"Bobby," Ellen whispered.

"Bobby Singer?" Dean clarified. Then he let out a furious snarl and a sharp laugh. "I should have known—"

"What the hell's going on out here?" came a slurred, half-stoned voice as Ash stepped into the bar, mullet falling back in greasy locks, stubble rising on an unshaven face, ratty clothing covered in dirt and other suspicious stains.

Dean's eyes flickered over to him, and he grinned affably. "Hey, Ash. Ellen and I were just having a conversation," he greeted, striding over to the man as he lowered his gun.

"Ash!" Ellen shouted from her place at the wall, but it was too late.

Dean had reached the confounded Ash and swiftly brought the butt of his pistol up against the man's face, causing him to careen backwards. Bending over the moaning man, Dean slammed the gun down again on his head, and again, until Ash was lying unconscious on the floor, a small pool of blood forming around his face.

"You son of a bitch—" Ellen snapped as she came out from behind the bar, having snatched up a gun on the way. She lifted the rifle and pointed it at Dean just as he swung around, bloodied pistol in hand.

A moment into the stalemate, Dean burst out into a deep, raucous laugh. "Come on, Ellen. You're not going to shoot me. Be a doll and put down the gun, now."

"What makes you so sure I won't shoot you?" Ellen retorted.

Dean shrugged. "Call it a gut instinct." They were silent for another moment. "You know, I'm surprised you thought you had the right, interfering like this. I'm surprised you all thought you could do this, hide Sam and expect me not to find out, not to find him. I'm just damned _surprised_ you had the nerve. Why don't you go back to worrying about your little fight with your daughter and stop getting involved in Sam's and my business, huh?"

"I told you, I'm not involved," Ellen replied, her voice not quite as steady as it had been. "I just hear things."

"Oh, I bet you hear a lot of things," Dean murmured darkly, taking a step closer to the barmaid. "Let's see if you can hear Jo screaming all the way from Minnesota—"

The sound of a gunshot cracked through the air like an electric shock, singing through the silence in a deafening explosion of heat and gunpowder. Dean flung himself to the floor behind a table, the bullet missing him by inches. A window on the other end of the room shattered, sending bits of glass flying all over to mingle with the dust, glittering in the gray sunlight, and a hollow laugh echoed throughout the empty bar. "Well, if that's the way you want to play, bitch…" Rising from his crouch beneath the table, he gazed around the barroom, empty but for the unmoving form of Ash.

"Ah, come on, now, Ellen… I'm not really one for hide and seek, and I'm already in the middle of that game with Sammy…" Dean called out, stepping cautiously around as he observed the possible hiding places she might have gone. "You know, your aim could use some work. S'all I'm saying… your gunmanship ain't the best. Maybe stick with knives or something from now on."

"Funny," Ellen snarled as she leapt out from the closet behind Dean, piercing a long, sharp blade through his right side and burying it deep in his gut. "Knives are my specialty."

Dean gave a growl like a wounded animal and staggered forwards as Ellen yanked the knife out and blood gushed liberally from his side. Pressing both hands over the cut to staunch the flow, he whirled around, eyes blazing and teeth bared in a vicious snarl. "_Bitch_," he choked out as the wound started to clot from his pressure. "Mother fucking…" His low stream of curses died down to an incomprehensible murmur as Ellen stepped back, wielding the long blade, face hardening.

Bending over himself, Dean took a few breaths, whimpering a bit. "God, Ellen…" he whispered, voice thick with sorrow and pain, laced with a smidgeon of regret. Ellen lowered the knife and took a step forward, worry and fear clouding her eyes as Dean drew in another uneven breath, face lowered and scrunched up in agony.

"Dean…" She reached out a tentative hand. "I don't know what's going on here, I swear to you, but—"

Before she could finish, Dean snapped himself to full height, grabbed Ellen by the head, and slammed her against the wall with a vicious smack. A grin rose on his face as he limped closer, still clutching the wound in his side. Ellen groaned, a hand rising to the lump surely forming on the back of her head. "That feel good?" Dean spat, breath rank with beer and vengeance, hot against Ellen's face.

She shook her head, slashing at him with the knife. Dean stepped back, laughing. "Pathetic."

"No," Ellen whispered, and Dean leaned in, cocking his head.

"No, what?"

"No, that didn't feel good," Ellen elucidated, blinking slowly until her eyes were focused upon the looming figure of Dean. "But this will." Leaping forward, she brought the knife down through the air in Dean's direction, and he was forced to jump backwards. As it so happened, there was a table just behind him with upturned chairs on it, and he crashed into the wood with a riotous clatter, the chairs tumbling down and splintering on the floor as his back connected with the tabletop. It cracked in half under the sudden force of Dean's full weight, caving in at the center as he fell back and slammed his head against the hard floor.

When he returned to consciousness several minutes later, the barroom was completely empty. Pushing himself to his feet, Dean picked up the pistol where it had fallen and tucked it back into the waistband of his jeans. "Time to find Sammy," he murmured to himself as he exited the Roadhouse without a glance back.

----------------------------

It's cold, he realizes.

Like a bitter, arctic wind gusting in from a snow-filled, glacial landscape, it clutches him with icy fingers that won't let go, the temperature never evening out with his own inner warmth, which slowly gives in to the chilliness. It's _cold_, and it's _dark_, and it's _nothing_. It's _empty_. And it's _alone_.

He sinks further into the recesses of his own mind, trying to block it all out, trying to become this hollow shell of _nothing_ that the darkness has made of him, that the darkness echoes and laughs and grins at him. It's been too long, and he starts to think his brother won't come and save him. Starts to think it's all over. Starts to become one with that too familiar nothingness.

Everything is dwindling away, and soon he pays no more mind to the voices just out of reach, just beyond his cell of darkness. He waits, and he waits, and he waits for something to happen; and when nothing does, he lets the cold wash over him like an angry black tidal wave, and he pays no mind to the voices.

He is a hostage in death's dream kingdom.

_Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!_

He is hollow. He is lost.

He wonders whether or not he'll ever be found.


	3. Part 3

_A/N:_ Thanks for being fantastic readers! Here's the final part.

**PART THREE**

It was dark by time the classic Impala pulled into the junkyard outside Bobby's house, slinking in among rubble and rusty brown pickups and half-patched zombie-like cars returning from the dead. The engine puttered and died as Dean turned the key in the ignition before opening the squeaky door and stepping with a crunch onto the gravelly ground.

A brown stain marred the driver's seat when he got out, right about where one's midsection would rest on the back. Dean grabbed his worn leather jacket and pulled his arms into it, wrapping it around the gash in his side that oozed onto the upholstery. Slamming the car door, he turned away from the mess without so much as a backward glance.

When he got to the front door, he made to rap his knuckles against the wood but instead grabbed the handle and twisted. It swung open easily, and he stepped inside the house and out of the shadows cast by the lightless evening sky.

Creeping stealthily through the house, Dean reached back to the waistband of his pants and pulled out the cop's pistol, holding it in front of him with two hands as he peered around the edge of an open doorway into a darkened room. Stepping in, he pressed his back against the wall, eyes scanning around for a light switch.

Turned out, he didn't need to look for one.

All at once, the overhead light flickered angrily to life, revealing Bobby standing patiently on the other end of the room, a hard glint in his eye. "Ellen said you might pop by sometime. Then again, I would have known anyway by the siren that engine of yours gives off when you get too near."

Dean grinned, the pistol loose in his grip, the light bouncing brightly off his eyes and teeth. "Hey, Bobby. Should've known this would be the hunters' lost and found, huh?" he teased with a baritone chuckle deep in his throat. "So predictable."

"Yeah, I'll bet you lost something," Bobby replied calmly.

"Is he here?" Dean asked, raising his eyebrows. Glancing around the room, he called out in a soft sing-song, "Sammy! Come out, come out wherever you are…"

"He won't listen to you," Bobby cut in, voice still deceptively nonchalant. "He won't listen to a goddamn thing you say."

"Oh no?" Dean taunted, licking his lips, the overhead light shining on the slick saliva. "Well, then I'll just have to make him then, huh?" Holding up the pistol, he tapped it against the wall twice before bringing it down until the barrel was horizontal, aiming at Bobby's unprotected chest. "Think he'll listen now?"

"Put the gun down," Sam's low growl echoed from the corner of the room, and Dean turned his head as the massive silhouette emerged, stepping out of the shadows. In a blur of motion, he took another step and lifted a small green gun.

Dean barked out a harsh, unrestrained cackle, throwing his head back as the sound escaped his lips and danced merrily around the room. "A squirt gun? Man, Sammy, and here I thought you had balls—"

Sam pressed the trigger, and a thin stream of water arced through the air; Dean's eyes widened fractionally as if the meaning of life had been suddenly opened up to him, and then the water splashed down on his face, sizzling and steaming as he bent double, clutching at himself with his free hand.

"Fucking—son of a whore—!" He growled as he wiped at the water burning his eyes and nose, dripping down to sear his lips with white-hot rage. "You and your mother-fucking holy water gun!"

Sam's large hands wrapped around Dean's wrist, preparing to dislodge the gun from his grip and drag him over to the chair under the devil's trap, but Dean was quicker. Blinking the fiery water out of his eyes, he slammed his elbow against Sam's nose, releasing a surprised cry and a dribble of blood. Once Sam was down, he gave him a hard kick in the ribs, sufficiently knocking the wind out of Sam. Sneering, he raised the gun again and pointed it at Bobby.

Bobby, who was pointing a gun right back at him.

Dean chuckled. "First Ellen, now you. I'm beginning to think nobody cares whether Dean lives or dies, here."

Bobby's eyes narrowed to dark slits, and he leered right back at Dean. "Yeah, well we know how to shoot to incapacitate, not kill."

"That's funny," Dean replied, kicking Sam away as he tried to get up from where he'd fallen on the floor, moaning and grabbing at his swelling face. "So do I."

With a quick bang, Bobby was on the floor: gun skidding out of his grip, face scrunching up in agony and shock, foot a mess of blood and blown-off tissue oozing out from his shoe where the bullet had connected.

"You know, it's almost more fun that way," Dean grinned, wiping a speck of dried blood off the pistol in his hand. "I mean, murder's nice and all, but torture? That's a party. Why kill when you can put someone in unbearable misery? Getting shot's no fun. I think Dean can attest to that."

"You bastard," Sam managed to choke out as he struggled to his feet.

"What I want to know," Dean continued, leveling the gun at Sam as he warily stood, grabbing the wall for support, "is why you all thought you could get together and hide Sam away? Keep him safe from me?" He shook his head, eyes unfathomably deep, like the endless barrel of a gun. "You can't keep him safe. Even Dean couldn't do that." He smirked. "It's all gone up in flames, Sammy. Literally. You can't stop it; that's why I'm here. We've got plans for you." Dean's grin twisted into a horrible, sardonic leer that contorted his once-handsome face into something sick and hideous. His eyes deepened until they were coal-black, two pits of endless darkness gazing out straight from the depths of hell.

With a shout Sam lunged at him, and there was a momentary tussle on the floor before they knocked each other backwards, ending the skirmish in a flurry of motion just as a hand hit the light switch, plummeting the room into darkness.

Heavy footsteps echoed—then the sound of a slamming door. Dean turned, left Bobby bleeding on the floor, and followed Sam outside into the junkyard.

The night was quiet and still… peaceful, almost. A few stars peaked out from the hazy sky, blinking blearily down at the world so far away, tiny pinpricks of light way up, nearly enshrouded in the profound inkiness of the clouds and the night and the sinister emptiness of the waiting junkyard.

"Don't do this, Sam," Dean called out as he strode among the hunks of falling-apart metal with bits missing: a window here, a trunk-lid there, a wheel or two… all half-cars, all broken piles of debris with no hope for repair. No hope to become whole again. "This half-assed attempt to save yourself? It's ridiculous. There are more of us than there are of you, Sammy my boy, and if you don't want to put more of your friends in jeopardy, I suggest you do what I say now and face up to who you really are."

He paused next to a station wagon with the paint chipping off in chunks, leaving holes on the sides next to long scratches and yawning dents. "Who are you? I've seen your eyes; you're not the one that wants me," Sam called from somewhere in the graveyard of scrap metal, somewhere among the wreckage of fallen heroes of the road.

"Me? I'm just a messenger," Dean called out, following the direction Sam's voice had come from as he quietly maneuvered around a black truck. "I told you, there are more of us than you know. The one you're thinking of? He's one powerful motherfucker. And he's got big plans. Most of us just do what he says if we don't want our asses roasting in Hell for eternity, you know what I'm saying?" He let out a deep, rumbling laugh that drifted around the cars, weaving throughout the junkyard. "Well, I guess you don't. But you can always ask your dad what that's like."

"Fuck you!"

Dean turned to his right, following the voice, gun held aloft and ready. "You're a doll, Sam, but I don't think Dean's into incest. Me, though? I think that could get kinky."

There was silence on Sam's end; it would seem he had finally realized the point of the demon's little ploy. But that didn't much matter, so Dean kept talking. "Come on, Sam. Why don't we quit this game of hide and seek, go get in the car, and drive away from here? You'll do what I say—just like you always did what Dean said—and we'll pretend like this never happened…"

He was close now; Sam's hulking shape was ducking just behind a beat-up minivan, but the profile of his face peered through a window. Sneaking over to the van, Dean edged around the other side, keeping away from the slightly tinted windows as he crept silently to the back bumper. Then, quick as lightning, he pounced from his crouch and cracked Sam on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol. Sam whirled around, limbs flailing, and produced a long metal pipe that must have been lying around amid the grimy car parts. He slammed the end of the pipe against Dean's face, and blood spurted from Dean's nose—much like it had from Sam's earlier on—and gathered around his lips, dripping into his mouth and staining his gleaming teeth red.

Dean grinned through the blood, spitting some out as he stood up straight, raising the gun. Sam dove forward again, knocking the gun clear from Dean's grip and muttering a quiet "sorry" into the night air as he drove the pipe into Dean's left shoulder. The old wound screaming in protest, Dean let out a guttural cry and clutched at his shoulder as he went down, head banging on the side of the minivan as he went, free hand scrabbling for purchase on the smooth metal.

Sam vanished as soon as the blow had come, and Dean lay for a moment in a haze, rolling his shoulder as he sought solid ground beneath his feet. "Where'dja go, Sam?" Dean called out, a thin trail of crimson seeping from between parted lips and making a path down his chin. "Marco… Marco…" He ran his hands over the ground in search of the gun before giving up and crouching behind the van as he gazed around the graveyard. "This is where you're supposed to say 'Polo,' numb-nuts. Didn't they teach you anything at Stanford?"

More silence. Dean crept around a bit, weaving around the cars and calling out every so often, "Saaa-mmeee, where you hiding? Saaa-mmeee!" He ducked around an old Dodge. "You can't run forever, Sammy-boy."

A sudden spurt of scalding water hit him in the back of the head, and he let out a feral growl as he whirled around, shaking off the acidic knives digging into his flesh. Sam stood calmly behind him, squirt gun poised in one hand, open book in the other.

Without preamble, Sam began chanting: _"Solvo is everto ex is somes , recro animus intus , iacio sicco malum quod transporto is tergum ut abyssus—"_

Dean leaned lazily against a car. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." When Sam didn't stop, he took a deep breath. "Okay, then. Dean's funeral."

Sam stopped.

At the questioning look on his face, Dean barked out a laugh. "You look like a wounded puppy; I can't take you seriously. Especially when you didn't even bother to bind me here with a devil's trap. That's strike number one."

Sam frowned. "What did you say?"

Dean grinned, soft white moonlight shining down on his bloodstained teeth. "See this?" He peeled away the midsection of the leather jacket, revealing the bloodied shirt and long gash across his side. "Ellen's fine knife-work, that is." He let the coat fall back into place. "Yep, she got him good, and that thing's been bleeding out all day. Your brother's as good as dead."

The color drained from Sam's face as he stood there, puny green water gun in one hand, exorcism ritual in the other.

"Once you get rid of me, you might as well say goodbye to Dean. I can already feel him dying in here." He paused. "You remember Meg, don't you?" A slow, sardonic smile. "Of course you do. Well, that demon—the one you got up close and personal with—that was the only thing holding her together. And I'm the only thing keeping Dean alive here, so when you finish that ritual, you'd better be prepared to watch him die. Listen to his last ragged, painful breaths as he bleeds out in your hands; feel his skin go cold as his heart stops pumping; watch the light go out in his eyes as he drifts away, not with a bang but a whimper."

Sam let out a shaky breath. "Gee, I didn't know demons read T. S. Eliot."

"Hell is full of surprises," Dean replied with a grin.

The book remained propped open, but Sam's eyes never left Dean as he hesitated, lips trembling slightly as his eyes stared blankly off into the distance.

"He doesn't want to die," Dean spoke again in a low, mournful voice that quivered very slightly. "In fact, that's all he's been thinking about in here: how much he wants you to come save him. How much he wants to live. I don't think he'd want you to just let him die, would he?"

Sam swallowed, his throat working as he stood like an ice sculpture melting away under the blaze of the hot summer sun.

"Because this would be as good as killing him, right? Then again, I guess you don't really care for your brother to live, anyway. I mean, you've shot him twice already. That's gotta say something about your broken fraternal bond here. Yeah, to hell with it. Let the bastard die." Dean shrugged spitting blood onto the ground as he crossed his arms over his stomach. "You never really cared about him anyway, did you?"

"Shut up," Sam growled, eyes bright with tears and fury. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about—"

"Don't I?" Dean cut him off, face oddly amused, lips curled up in a genuinely benign expression. "Okey-dokey then, don't let your brother die. He'd be…" Dean's voice trailed off and Sam watched, eyebrows drawn down in a tight line, as he seemed to struggle with himself, bending over and gripping the car behind him. When he looked up, his eyes were wide, mouth slack, face terrified. "Sam?"

Sam stood stock still, gaping at his brother. "Dean?"

"Sam, don't let it kill me," Dean begged, lower lip trembling against a sea of blood. "We'll figure this out later, but don't let it kill me. Just do what it says. Please, Sam."

Dean blinked, shook his head, and straightened up. When he slowly turned his eyes back on Sam, they were a deep and impenetrable black.

Clearing his throat, Sam pulled the corner of his lip up in a smirk. "Nice try. It was pretty convincing, I'll give you that. But there's one thing you screwed up on." Sam's eyes glinted against the white moonlight. "Dean would have called me Sammy."

Dean laughed harshly. "You're good. Ah well, what does it matter, anyway? Dean doesn't want to die, you don't want to become your brother's murderer—so why don't we just head over to the car and drive away? It'll be just like old times. We'll hunt things together; granted, the game will be a bit different from demons, but things will be like they were before. You. Me. The open road." Suddenly his voice changed, deepened, became more smooth and velvety… became more Dean-like. His whole demeanor was transforming. He straightened up against the side of the car, still casual, but his eyes turned hazel and his grin became less threatening.

It was just _Dean_ standing there.

"I can do a really good impersonation of your brother," Dean spoke with a grin. "I _am_ your brother. I mean, that's what you want, right? You want your brother back. Well, here I am dude, so let's get our asses on the road, forget any of this ever happened. You'll listen to me and do what I say, because I'm the older brother and I'm always right." He chuckled smoothly, exactly like Dean would. "We'll make it a smooth transition, you'll see. But I swear, we're not going to listen to any of your pansy-ass music on the way. I think I wore out my Black Sabbath tape earlier today, so we'll have to go with some good old-fashioned Metallica."

Sam gaped. It was Dean. It was _Dean_.

But it wasn't.

"Come on, Sam, let's hit the road. Get your geek-boy ass in gear, we don't got all night." He patted the car behind him and made towards the Impala on the far end of the junkyard. "You coming?"

Sam stared down at the ground for a long moment. Then he dropped the squirt gun, dripping holy water over the dry gravel, snapped the book shut, and tucked it under his arm. "Yeah," he replied hoarsely, nodding as if to affirm his convictions. "Yeah, let's go." He followed Dean through the metal-strewn graveyard of broken and irreparable cars, eyes glued to the distant horizon where the Impala lay innocently in the shadows.

Dean arrived at the car first, removing the keys from his pocket as he pulled open the driver's side door, sliding easily into the seat with the brown stain that might look like spilled coffee under only flippant scrutiny. Sam strode around to the passenger's side, took a breath, and eased open the heavy door with a dreary creak. Bending double until his shaggy head hovered in the open doorway, he rolled his eyes to the ceiling of the car.

"Dude, what's the holdup?" Dean snapped somewhat impatiently.

Sam nodded, lips quirking up in a fleeting smile. "Nice work, Bobby."

"What the…?" Dean swiveled in his seat until Bobby was in full view from his sprawl over the backseat, a smug smirk on his shrewd face. His mangled foot was raised over his opposite knee, and his eyes gleamed in the darkness. Outrage played across Dean's face as he slowly turned his eyes to the ceiling of the car where Bobby had drawn in white chalk a pentagram inscribed in a circle. He gave a snarl as his face contorted, twisting into an ugly scowl, eyes melting into blackness as he reached out to swipe at Bobby.

But instead he winced and snatched his arm back.

"You think I'm an idiot?" Bobby goaded from behind. "I put one on the back of your seat for good measure."

The low, animalistic sound that emerged from Dean's mouth was reminiscent of the Impala's hungry engine rumbling to life. Sam, still leaning over to observe the inside of the car, flipped the book open to the page he'd left and started chanting once more. _"Solvo is everto ex is somes…"_

"Your brother's going to die for this, Sam," Dean roared, voice warping along with his face into something dark and low and fierce. "He's going to burn with your father in Hell until his flesh has melted off and the pain eats him slowly from the inside out. He'll never forgive you, and you'll both know what you really are, Sam: a murderer."

"Oh, just go to Hell already," Bobby groaned from the backseat.

"…_iacio sicco malum quod transporto is tergum ut abyssus…"_

Dean cried out, a choked, guttural sound, his head whipping to the side as he panted heavily into the back of the leather seat. "You're a selfish bastard, aren't you, Sammy?" Dean gasped, his eyes boring a hole in the cover of the exorcism book. "You'd rather let your brother die than face up to what you're turning into—_aaaarrrgh!_" he shouted again as his head banged against the back of the seat, charcoal eyes rolling in their sockets, spittle and blood spraying from his mouth.

"…_permissum is miles militis of diabolus exuro pro totus infinitio per poena of mille occasus in abyssus. Amen."_

As Sam was closing the book, Dean's scream rang through the junkyard, a billowing cloud of black smoke erupting from his mouth and shooting out of the car, mingling with the night. Dean's mouth stretched and his eyes squeezed shut as the demon ripped itself from his body with a pain-filled cry as if he were vomiting every last bit of his innards into the classic Chevy Impala.

----------------------------

There is a stirring within him when he first hears the Latin, but then it settles, dies away into nothing, and he's left alone once more.

This time, the voices aren't just nameless, faceless people; this time he hears his brother. He hears Sam, and a cry of miserable joy rises within him devastating enough to crack his heart in half. Sam has come to save him.

But he doesn't know what will be salvageable. He has become acquainted with the evil overtaking his body. He has seen the truth, the terrible heart of immense darkness rising like a veil before him, and he knows that it cannot be stopped. Could never be stopped despite the surface truths with which they tried to distract themselves, the lies, the false hope and promises. The darkness is too great, and when it comes to swallow the world, he wonders where the light will be to scare away the shadows.

He is a hostage in his own body, but more importantly, he is a hostage of his own thoughts.

Of course, he hasn't been like this the whole time. He's seen flashes of the whole thing—seen Sam's first reaction in the motel room and his ensuing self-defense, which gave Dean some nice yellow bruises on his neck; seen himself get knocked out and wake to find Sam gone; seen himself feed Jo some bogus story about Sam getting kidnapped; seen himself beat that cop to a bloody pulp; seen himself point a gun at Ellen and proceed towards Bobby's. He's seen it in bits and pieces, like a disjointed puzzle. But he's tried to retreat within himself because he doesn't want to see any more. He thinks that if he can dissolve into the darkness, it will be as if he never existed in the first place.

He feels hollow and meaningless. It smells like defeat and tastes like failure.

Suddenly there is a ripping, tearing pain like someone trying to sever his soul from his body; there is a rushing in his ears like a high wind; there is a bone-deep ache and weariness, and there is grayness, and there is everything.

And then there is deflating; there is whiteness; there is nothing.

----------------------------

The first thing he felt before he even lifted his heavy eyelids was cool, smooth glass against the left side of his slumped face. Then a deep, throbbing, stinging pain jolted his right side, followed by a duller ache in his face and the renewed pain that never really vanished from his left shoulder.

"Dean. Come on, man, wake up." Sam's gentle, pleading voice. And then Sam's not-so-gentle but well-meaning hands on his shoulders, trying to move him, trying to rouse him, and pain shrieked through his right side at the slight jostling, causing Dean to grunt. Sam's voice became more urgent when he spoke again, less of a mumbled mantra to himself. "Dean, I have to move you to the passenger's seat… I have to get you to a hospital, okay? Do you think you can help me out here?"

He pressed his face further into the cool glass, relishing the icy chill numbing his cheek. Sucked in a few deep breaths, trying to quell the shock of merciless pain. "Sammy?" he muttered at last into the window. There was affirmative silence as Sam's hands ghosted over him, searching for a good place to grab and haul him over. "You came."

But Dean knew that was bull. Sam hadn't come. He—the _demon_—had sought Sam out.

Sam released a shaky breath close to Dean's right ear. "Yeah. Come on, man, I've got to move you over."

Groaning, Dean opened his eyes and found himself in the driver's seat of the Impala, slouched over with his head on the window and right arm curled protectively, subconsciously, over his bloody midsection.

With a bit more shuffling, a few helpful hands from Bobby, and several minutes' worth of blacking out from the pain in his side, Dean was settled into the passenger's seat, huffing out steadying breaths and closing his eyes. "You okay, Sammy?" he mumbled at last when he felt Sam duck into the driver's seat and turn the key in the ignition.

"I'm fine, Dean. It's you and Bobby we've got to worry about."

"Don't worry about me," Bobby piped up from the back. "I think you only blasted off my pinky toe, anyway. And who really needs the pinky toe? About as useful as an appendix. Or wisdom teeth."

On any normal occasion, Dean would have laughed, but he figured laughing might cause his intestines to plop out through his wound and spill onto the seat. And plus, he wasn't really in a joking kind of mood.

The engine rumbled, causing the car to vibrate slightly, lulling Dean into false security as they peeled away onto the street, surely well above the speed limit. "Everything's gonna be okay, Dean," Sam's soft voice drifted in and out of his hearing, and Dean wondered who he was trying to convince—Dean or himself. "Just hang in there."

He wanted to believe it. He really did. But something just kept bringing back the image of Bobby's junkyard, with hunks of rusting cars like tombstones shining under the pale moonlight, the eerie stillness like that of a graveyard.

"Oh," Sam mumbled, and Dean heard him fiddling around with something that clinked and clanked like bits of metal. Grabbing Dean's hand, he faced it palm-up and released a small, solid trinket into it. "I think you dropped this."

Dean rubbed his thumb over it and felt a lump grow in his throat. It was the damn anti-possession charm. Swallowing, he squeezed his eyes shut tighter against the stinging sensation within and leaned the side of his forehead against the gently vibrating window. The car was silent, but Dean's head was filled with Sam's echoing _Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be…_

Remember us—if at all—not as lost  
Violent souls,

_Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's…_

but only  
As the hollow men  
The stuffed men.

_Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna…_

_**end.**_


End file.
